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But matters are involved here which demand specific
investigation and cannot be treated as incidental merely to our
present problem. We are faced with several questions: Is the
heavenly system exposed to any such flux as would occasion the
need of some restoration corresponding to nourishment; or do its
members, once set in their due places, suffer no loss of
substance, permanent by Kind? Does it consist of fire only, or is
it mainly of fire with the other elements, as well, taken up and
carried in the circuit by the dominant Principle?
Our doctrine of the immortality of the heavenly system rests on
the firmest foundation once we have cited the sovereign agent,
the soul, and considered, besides, the peculiar excellence of the
bodily substance constituting the stars, a material so pure, so
entirely the noblest, and chosen by the soul as, in all living
beings, the determining principle appropriates to itself the
choicest among their characteristic parts. No doubt Aristotle is
right in speaking of flame as a turmoil, fire insolently rioting;
but the celestial fire is equable, placid, docile to the purposes
of the stars.
Still, the great argument remains, the Soul, moving in its
marvellous might second only to the very loftiest Existents: how
could anything once placed within this Soul break away from it
into non-being? No one that understands this principle, the
support of all things, can fail to see that, sprung from God, it
is a stronger stay than any bonds.
And is it conceivable that the Soul, valid to sustain for a
certain space of time, could not so sustain for ever? This would
be to assume that it holds things together by violence; that
there is a "natural course" at variance with what actually exists
in the nature of the universe and in these exquisitely ordered
beings; and that there is some power able to storm the
established system and destroy its ordered coherence, some
kingdom or dominion that may shatter the order founded by the
Soul.
Further: The Kosmos has had no beginning- the impossibility has
been shown elsewhere- and this is warrant for its continued
existence. Why should there be in the future a change that has
not yet occurred? The elements there are not worn away like beams
and rafters: they hold sound for ever, and so the All holds
sound. And even supposing these elements to be in ceaseless
transmutation, yet the All persists: the ground of all the change
must itself be changeless.
As to any alteration of purpose in the Soul we have already shown
the emptiness of that fancy: the administration of the universe
entails neither labour nor loss; and, even supposing the
possibility of annihilating all that is material, the Soul would
be no whit the better or the worse.
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